Mouthless Part II (Dziady) is a live performance that departs from the logic of the out-loud reading format, used in Mouthless Part I, to embrace theatrical, musical, and ritualistic modes of staging. In this work, the space accommodates several sculptural works, LED screens and three actors who assemble to evoke the Eastern European folk tradition of Dziady —the Slavic Day of the Dead. This performative summoning of familial spirits is furthered through the use of GAN animations and LED fans, clashing the ritualistic aesthetic of folklore with that of contemporary technology. Lip-synching to a pre-recorded soundtrack, the performers move in an eerie choreography while interpreting a musical composition based on the melodies of Lithuanian folk songs Sutartinės. The sinister feel of polyphonic singing, heavily repetitive and melodically dissonant, produces an overwhelming sense of displacement and is exaggerated further when the track is suddenly reversed eroding legible language and leaving behind only weird tonal debris. Past, present, future, bleed into one another as fragments and circulate, through bodies and technical interfaces.Malevolent spirits inhabiting Eastern European serve to demonstrate that the past was never actually ‘past’ at all. The dead, drowned, burned and buried live—they have always lived—in the spill, in the landscape and in folk horror. It is no coincidence, thus, that the choreography of the piece refers to the cyclical time, characteristic of the folk horror genre, the pagan religions, the myths and folklore.

Mouthless Part II (Dziady) features Camilla De Siati, Sara Leghissa and Giulia Terminio. Costme by Tim Heyduck. Hair and Make-up by Chiara Radice.